The Meaning of Love
by RiversEdge
Summary: If your heart depended on it, would you be able to answer your loved ones question when they ask you the meaning of love? Can knowing the meaning of love save any releationship? Can Faith find this meaning before it's too late?


_The Meaning of Love_

**_Authors Note:_ **Don't own these characters, but the story idea is mine.

**_Warnings:_ **Just to let you guys know, there is some swearing in this story, but it's not over the top every second word swearing. Sexual situations are most likely going to be throughout the entire story, so this story is going to get more rated "M" the more I add to it.

**_Reviews:_ **Please and thank you…

_Goddamn it, what's taking them so long?_ Faith complained as she took the smoldering cigarette out of her mouth while letting the smoke escape her lips. _This is taking way too goddamn long_,Faith's thoughts continued as she waited for any sign that anyone was home. After a moment longer of waiting for the Summers' to open their front door to let Faith in, she decided to knock again, but with a little more force.

Faith then turned her attention to her surroundings, training her eyes to look for anything suspicious in the dark, cold night air. The streets were silent and there seemed to be nothing of danger lurking around the parked cars, not even stray cats roaming the streets unwanted. Faith sighed in frustration while taking another drag of her cigarette. Before letting the smoke escape her lungs, she leaned forward to peer through the glass designs around the front entrance. Faith tried to find any sign that there was anyone inside then tried to decide what the hell she was supposed to do now. Faith's hand moved to support her abdomen when she felt the pain stinging just as fresh as it had occurred a moment before making her way to the Summers' residence.

_Goddamn, does this bitch ever sting,_ Faith thought as she removed her hand to check for blood. When she did remove her hand, her fear worsened when the crimson flow appeared on her hand.

"Shit!" replied Faith to herself then banged on the door harder, yelling out, "Yo, Buffy! Open up! I need some help here!" Faith bowed her head while she let the tobacco smoke escape her lips.

"What do you want Faith?" asked a voice behind her.

Faith immediately turned herself around, and smiled in relief before saying, "Buffy, thank God! I need some help."

Buffy gave her a puzzled look before asking, "What's wrong, Faith, are you hurt?"

Faith just looked at her and smirked, before revealing the ugly wound that cut across her stomach, the blood almost soaking her shirt. "Yeah, just a bit."

Buffy's eyes went bug-eyed as she rushed to Faith's side. "Oh my God, Faith, what happened?!" questioned Buffy as she let her hands examine the wound while Faith rested herself against the front door.

"Well, I've got some good news and bad news for ya, Buffy. Probably best if we discussed this inside, I'm freezing my ass off!"

Buffy straightened herself up before digging into her pocket in search of her front door key. When she found the key, she went to the door and opened it. "Good idea, let's go."

As Buffy and Faith entered the house, Dawn came running down the stairs, saying, "Buffy, it's about time you got home. Listen-" Dawn stopped talking straight away when she saw, of all people, Faith standing in the hallway looking back at her. "Faith?" questioned Dawn as she looked from Faith to Buffy then back to Faith again.

"What! You were home! The brat was home while I was banging on the door practically bleeding to death!" hollered Faith as she accepted a towel from Buffy to place against her wound.

"I'm sorry, Faith," apologized Dawn. "I guess I didn't hear you."

Faith just looked at her and questioned, "You didn't hear me practically banging down the door?"

"No," replied Dawn.

"Then what the hell were you doing during my moment of bleeding to death?" asked Faith as she lifted her shirt up a bit to place the towel directly over the wound, hissing in pain while waiting for Dawn's answer.

"I was busy," responded Dawn, shifting uncomfortably.

"Well, while you two are fighting, I'll get Faith some bandages and stuff." stated Buffy as she left the room.

"Busy doing what?" pressed Faith as she held the almost blood-soaked towel against her wound.

"Why does it matter?" asked Dawn as she moved down the stairs to get closer to Faith.

"It matters because a brat who stays home all day should be useful for something," responded Faith bitterly then hissed at the pain.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dawn practically shouted as she began to be angered by Faith's rudeness.

"It means that when a gal has been attacked and is bleeding to death, the moral thing to do is to open the door, and help the gal before she BLEEDS TO DEATH! And not just sit in a room and masturbate!" spat Faith as Dawn glared at her in anger before feeling the hurt surfaced through a lone tear as she ran up the stairs and slammed the door to her bedroom behind her.

_Oh shit, I hurt her feelings, fantastic! And I just got here, too_."It was nice seeing you again, Dawnie!" shouted Faith, hoping that Dawn would hear her.

"Fuck you!" replied Dawn with a quick opening and slamming of her bedroom door. Faith smiled then frowned, as she suddenly felt a little bit guiltier as the silence of the room left her to think about Dawn's reaction and what she had said to her.

As Faith stood in the hallway alone with her guilt, she almost forgot about the pain of her wound and the fact that blood began to drip off the towel and onto the floor. After being brought back to reality when Buffy entered the room, Faith realized the mess she was making and asked, "Um, hey, B, I think I need another towel."

"What? Oh, right," responded Buffy and ran back to the other room, returning after a moment with another towel. "Wow, you're bleeding pretty badly. Is it at least slowing down?"

After Faith grabbed the towel then replaced the old bloody towel with the newer one, she responded. "Yeah, I think so, thanks for the help."

"No problem, just sit down on the couch over there and I'll get you fixed up," replied Buffy as she grabbed the bloodied towel from Faith then ran to the kitchen sink to place it under cold water to clean some of the blood off. When Buffy returned, Faith was already sitting down on the couch with the new towel resting on her abdomen.

"Dawn!" shouted Buffy.

Dawn opened her bedroom door to respond, "What!"

"I need you to come down and help Faith with her wound"

"NO!" responded Dawn as Faith twitched at the volume and hatred coming from Dawn's voice.

"Now, Dawn!" commanded Buffy. She looked to Faith and explained. "I need to clean the bloody towel and call Giles. He should know that you're here."

"That's cool with me, B," responded Faith as she tried to relax her body before adding, "You know what, B, I think I can patch myself up. Dawn doesn't have to help me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Faith. You're in pain and you need help."

"Ok, fine, just don't let Dawn hurt me," replied Faith as she let out a soft chuckle.

At that moment Dawn entered the room with the med kit in her hand, and walked closer to Faith, who was still lying on the couch. Buffy then left the room to clean the blood off the towel and to call Giles. So Dawn was alone with Faith in a dangerous mood.

Dawn refused to even look at Faith as she opened the med kit to get out some antiseptic. Faith just watched her and prayed that she would play nice and not try to kill her or anything. She wanted to say something, but decided against it since Dawn probably wasn't in the mood to hear her speak.

Instead, Faith decided to be a little useful by lifting her shirt up to wipe the blood away from the wound. As she was doing this, she caught Dawn's eyes checking her out and couldn't help but grin when Dawn realized what she was doing and jerked her attention back to something else.

Once Dawn had finished spreading the antiseptic on Faith's wound, she grinned when Faith scrunched up her face in pain.

"You think that's funny?"

"Yeah," replied Dawn as she moved her attention back to the med kit to find some reasonable bandages for the wound.

As Dawn was looking for the bandages, Faith found the right opportunity to say, "Look, Dawn, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" questioned Dawn.

"For being a bitch"

"Oh, well, I guess I can forgive you," responded Dawn, turning her attention back to Faith, with some big bandages and a wrap.

"Yeah, well, that's cool," stated Faith as she watched Dawn carefully place the bandages over the wound.

"Are you sure that these bandages will do the job, I mean, you should get some stitches instead."

Faith grinned in response before saying, "Well, I'm a slayer, and this wound will be a lot better by tomorrow. So there really isn't a reason to get stitches when you got super human healing qualities."

Dawn smiled then nodded her head in agreement. "I guess you're right."

_Wow she has a great smile, very hot. What the hell did I just think? I did not just call Dawn hot! _

"Is there something wrong, Faith?" asked Dawn.

Faith jumped back into reality just in time to say, "Nothing, just thinking."

"About what?" asked Dawn as she finished dressing Faith's wound.

"Just thinking," responded Faith, trying to look at something other than Dawn.

"Oh, ok."


End file.
